Quality Education Vs Accreditation

Posted by Zofia zoey on February 19th, 2018

Quality in education is a multipurpose concept that depends on the actor we use as a reference. For some it implies employability, development of competences or knowledge; while for others it is associated with human development and skills in areas that go beyond the productive sector.

On the other hand, On the other hand, accreditation deals with the recognition granted by an accrediting body, which may or may not be governmental (although not usual), authorized and recognized, which formally indicates that an educational program of an educational institution has shown sufficiency In its structure, organization, functioning, inputs, teaching processes, services, social and professional relevance and educational results; All in accordance with the standards, criteria, indicators and parameters agreed upon as appropriate. It should be noted that there are institutional accreditations that, as its name implies, treat a superior and comprehensive scale of the functional areas of the educational entity. These can be confused with the membership to organizations since, in order to be a member of an academic organization, Institutions must comply with entry and stay requirements. However, institutional accreditations are different because they consider a greater number of elements and focus on generating information that encourages changes, while the memberships focus on the affinity that institutions can have with the principles, objectives or aspects of identity of the organism to be accessed as a member.

During the 1990s some policies were implemented focused on evaluating the quality of the higher education system from its processes. It is then that the Inter-Institutional Committees for the Evaluation of Higher Education are created. From its beginnings its action has been limited to the diagnostic evaluation of the educational programs, without that implies its accreditation. Such Committees do not accredit the careers, but it endorses the organisms that, in an operative way, evaluate the academic programs. Its functions include the following:

• Elaborate criteria and guidelines to formally recognize accreditation bodies;
• Develop a common evaluation framework for quality accreditation;
• Evaluate the accreditation bodies;
• Publicize the list of accredited accreditation bodies;
• Monitor academic rigor and impartiality of accreditation bodies

For its part, the process of accreditation of educational programs consists of five stages:

1. Application for accreditation;
2. Compliance with the conditions of the general framework for accreditation processes of academic programs;

3. A self-study that allows institutions to know in general their inputs, processes and results and the extent to which they contribute to the institutional objectives from a guide provided by the accreditation body;
4. Evaluation by an accrediting body;
5. The opinion that determines whether the academic program is accredited or not

Accreditation has served as a differentiation mechanism to identify those institutions that meet certain quality requirements. The accreditation has as its main objective the bureaucratic, legal and formal control of quality assurance.

The mechanisms followed by accreditation agencies are very similar, since they value practically the same aspects and only a few cases go beyond the usual. The emphasis on quality accreditation presents an efficiency-centric perspective that seems to be more closely associated with pragmatic schemes that induce isomorphism due to the inescapable socio-economic and political conditions facing Education systems. In this sense, the emphasis of national governments in redoubling efforts to achieve valid accreditation policies is notorious, so it is presumed that they will remain in force in the short and long term. 

Author Bio:

The author of this post is Zofia Zoey she is completing their studies in master's and now she is working as a writer at Dissertation Writing Service UK. She write many blos related to education and also helps students with their academic issues.